Formal education was primarily reserved for young boys from the middle or upper social classes. Many of these privileged boys attended grammar school from age seven to fourteen. The number of boys enrolling in grammar school increased in the Elizabethan period as part of the Protestant emphasis on education. After grammar school or extensive private tutoring, a select few elite English students might continue their education at the University of Oxford or Cambridge if their intellectual abilities and finances permitted. Scholarships for bright boys who lacked resources were rare but did exist. More commonly, boys and young men would begin an apprenticeship in a career path.
Although children from nobility were often taught by private tutors at home, most boys of the prosperous classes attended a local grammar school. These grammar schools enrolled the sons of prosperous minor landowners, merchants, skilled artisans and tradesmen, and lawyers. Starting in the 16th century, large numbers of grammar schools were founded throughout England to raise literacy, which was crucial for the newly Protestant nation. New doctrine encouraged each person to study the Bible individually, so literacy was tied to piety. The general purpose for education during this period was to instruct students in literacy but also on how to behave themselves appropriately based on their social class and to become better members of a Protestant nation.
Boys learned to read and to write English in a petty school and then in Latin in a grammar school. They also studied basic principles of Christianity. From ages seven to ten, students focused on spelling, grammar, rhetoric, and basic Latin. Most commonly, the schoolmaster spoke only in Latin and required students to do the same. Boys were expected to become proficient in Latin, the language of the educated population throughout Europe, or face physical punishment, including beatings with a birch rod. Discipline was strict.
Students from ages ten to fourteen advanced their Latin skills but were sometimes also trained in arithmetic, philosophy, religious studies, literature, and occasionally Greek. Classical Latin authors such as Ovid, Cicero, and Catullus anchored the curriculum.
Teachers during this period relied on rigid teaching modes such as memorization and recitation, believing them the most accurate form of learning. New ideas about education were promoted by writers like Roger Ascham, who tutored Queen Elizabeth I. His book
The typical school day began at 6:00 AM and ended at 5:00 PM, with a lunch break of an hour or more. School for these students continued for around forty-one weeks per year, with only a few weeks off for holiday breaks.
After grammar school, some elite young men either went to a university or to study the law at the Inns of Court. At either the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge, they would have to be admitted to one of the colleges, where they studied the traditional medieval curriculum of theology, supplemented by studies in grammar, rhetoric, and logic, alongside astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music. It was an education designed in the Middle Ages to prepare men for the priesthood, and so newer knowledge and literature were not formally studied. Young men could earn a baccalaureate degree in about three years, and a few earned a master’s degree after two more.
At one of the Inns of Court, young men read law, but there were no formal classes or tutorial system. Instead, the young men lived at one of the four Inns of Court, attended court sessions, and read law for seven years prior to being called to the bar.
The vast majority of boys and young men began work in a family business, or they started an apprenticeship to prepare for a career. Most boys began apprenticeships between ages 11-14. Boys seeking to enter a skilled trade completed seven years of apprenticeship before becoming eligible to be a journeyman and begin working for wages, usually in their early 20s.